The University of California has pledged to sell nearly $30,000,000 in private prison stock in the wake of the Afrikan Black Coalition (ABC), an active student organization that fights against the prison industrial complex, discovering the toxic relationship between education and incarceration on their campuses.

Through thorough research, ABC found that the UC system held a sizable investment spread out between Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and The Geo Group, “the world’s leading provider of correctional and detention management.”

Leaders of ABC have met with UC Chief Investment Officer Jagdeep Singh Bachher who pledged to sell all of UCs holdings in private prisons.

This was a small step within an even bigger goal for the organization. The University of California has a startling $425 million invested in Wells Fargo, one of the largest financiers of private prisons. ABC has released a statement giving an ultimatum to the banking institution on behalf of the University of California.

“Unless Wells Fargo immediately cancels all of its business relationships with private prisons, the $425 million the UC has invested in Wells Fargo must be divested immediately.”

ABC Field Organizer Kamilah Moore states: “In order for the UC’s mission to be fulfilled, it is imperative to assess investments not only from a risk perspective, but from a socially responsible perspective as well. Our campaign is not over. We will continue to call for complete divestment, increased transparency, and reinvestment in education and businesses owned or controlled by the formerly incarcerated.”

The statement also adds, “If the UC does not sell their $425 million of holdings in Wells Fargo Bank, they will have a statewide coalition of relentless, strategic, and fearless Black students who are intent on contributing their part to the Black Freedom Struggle.”

“Our patience is quickly reaching its limit and we intend to wage this struggle by any means necessary. We do not and we will not act alone, as the prison industrial complex targets Black, brown, poor and migrant lives, and the most marginalized have the least to lose.”